Survivor Story Guidelines | Sexual Abuse
Introduction
As part of our ongoing advocacy efforts, ACNAtoo offers our platform to ACNAtoo survivors who choose to tell their abuse stories publicly.
When survivors reach out to share their stories with us privately, our first step is to listen to and validate their experiences. Next, as appropriate, we offer peer support (connections with fellow ACNAtoo survivors) and direct them to qualified professional resources. Many survivors are simply looking for this connection and support, which can be a significant step in the healing process.
In some cases, survivors who reach out to us are also looking to tell their stories publicly.
Sharing your story of abuse publicly (even if you remain anonymous) is a big step and one we counsel survivors not to take lightly. Every survivor’s path to healing is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all plan. Some survivors find sharing publicly to be part of their healing process; for others, it may do them more harm. In a forthcoming post, we will discuss ways to share your story safely and productively, starting with discerning whether public disclosure is even a good step for you personally at this time.
In this post, we briefly address some of the common reasons survivors report choosing to share their stories publicly, then outline ACNAtoo’s established guidelines and best practices* for all stories we receive. These guidelines were established in collaboration among survivors, advocates, and trauma-informed professionals on the ACNAtoo team, using lessons learned from helping platform survivors over the past several months.
While ACNAtoo reserves the right to accept or reject stories, our posture remains one of survivor belief and we will generally accept stories that fit our stated parameters. Additionally, we will partner with survivors to help refine or rework any areas of their story which might violate our guidelines before publishing. (While we may have to make edits for guidelines adherence, the survivor will always have the right to accept or reject the final version of the story before publishing.)
If you are unsure how your story can be written or adapted to fit within these guidelines, we encourage you to reach out and we will work with you on this.
*As ACNAtoo continues to learn and grow, we anticipate updating these guidelines.
Why Do Survivors Share Publicly?
ACNAtoo’s mission, which combines the various priorities of survivors on our team and those who have reached out to us, is Advocacy for survivors of abuse in the ACNA, Education and resources for survivors and those who care for them, and Accountability for key leaders within the ACNA to hold survivor-centered policies.
A published survivor story can serve any or all of these objectives. Some survivors tell their stories to help promote and defend survivor rights, needs, and interests for themselves and the broader community of survivors. Some do so in order to educate ACNA congregants, leaders, and onlookers about abuse in the church and survivor-centered response. Some do so in order to publicly hold accountable those protected by ACNA power imbalances, adding to ACNAtoo’s calls for justice or disciplinary action from the Province.
What do I need to include?
Survivors have widely ranging levels of comfort regarding disclosing personal identifying information publicly. You have several options on how to proceed:
Survivor’s Identity: You can choose to tell your story anonymously, pseudonymously, or by using part of or your whole name. We will not make this determination for you and will work with whatever level of disclosure you are comfortable sharing. If you are in doubt, we recommend protecting your identity. You can always reveal it later, but you cannot go the other direction.
Situational Identity: You have the option to name the specific situation or to maintain anonymity. This can include keeping the church, perpetrator, and/or geographical location unspecified. We do require that the situation be directly relevant to the ACNA, meaning the perpetrator or connected guilty parties (though not necessarily the survivor) are current or past ACNA leaders, employees, or volunteers. (If your story isn't connected to the ACNA in any way, we recommend reaching out to a group like ourstoriesuntold.com, who are equipped to platform a broader array of stories.)
Story breadth: You are not required to tell your whole story. You are free to tell as little or as much as you are comfortable sharing about the setup, the abuse, and the aftermath. We are happy to discuss your story with you and help you think through your scope and objective in disclosing all or part of your story.
What “counts” as sexual abuse?
Sexual abuse comes in many forms and is often multi-faceted. The following are examples of sexually abusive behavior and are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. We acknowledge and validate survivor stories in all their many iterations. If after reading this you are still unsure whether your story “counts,” please reach out to us to talk further. It is very common for survivors to minimize or dismiss their abuse, so a good rule of thumb is that any lingering questions or discomfort are worth bringing up to a qualified organization or a professional specializing in sexual abuse. If you are not comfortable sharing your story with an ACNAtoo volunteer, we can direct you to resources to get you started seeking professional counsel.
Sexual harassment: This includes sexually inappropriate comments or jokes, sexting, propositioning someone for sex, and other sexually harmful behaviors that do not necessarily include physical contact. “Sexual harassment” generally refers to an adult harassing another adult. There is often a lot of doubt about what constitutes “inappropriate”; as mentioned above, your discomfort or sense of boundaries being crossed are valid reasons to question the behavior and at the very least bring your account to someone independent of the situation.
Sexual grooming: This category can be adult-on-adult or adult-on-child and includes patterns of unwanted (or in the case of adult-on-child, categorically inappropriate) physical touching such as kissing, petting, lingering hugs, back rubs, placing hands on thighs or waists, the perpetrator pulling the victim onto their lap, etc. While sexual grooming is abusive in and of itself, it is distinguished by generally being a gateway that normalizes unsafe situations and inappropriate behavior to victims (and onlookers), allowing the perpetrator to ascertain which victims’ boundaries they can push further. The grooming process can also include the perpetrator exposing the victim to sexually explicit conversation or material, creating situations to be alone with the victim to elicit vulnerable personal information, and disclosing highly personal information to create a degree of comfort around the sharing and keeping of secrets. The “boundary-crossing” grooming behaviors are often preceded by more acceptable behaviors that are typically received positively: The perpetrator may show special preference or attention to the victim and offer lots of time, gifts, special opportunities or activities and verbal affirmations. When boundary-crossing behaviors start, this is confusing for the victim, and they tend to dismiss it because of the cherished role of the perpetrator, or for fear of losing their “special” status or benefits of the relationship. Again, any confusion, doubt, or ambivalence is worth bringing to an independent professional or organization with experience in grooming patterns and behavior.
Sexual abuse within marriage or a dating relationship: This includes behaviors from sexual coercion to marital rape. In the case of ACNAtoo, this would include perpetrators who are ACNA leaders, employees, or volunteers as well as any abuse that was enabled or mishandled by pastoral counseling or the dominant church culture. (For example, a church that teaches women must have sex with their husbands whenever the husband desires, rather than promoting enthusiastic consent, is enabling abuse. A pastoral counselor who recommends a congregant continue living with an abusive spouse, as opposed to actively helping facilitate separation, is also enabling abuse.)
Sexual abuse of an adult by a spiritual authority figure: Any person in an established or socially understood position of spiritual authority who engages in any of the behaviors elsewhere on this list, or any sexual contact whatsoever, with relation to a person in their care, is committing abuse. This includes pastors and congregants, church counselors and those they counsel, mentors and mentees, etc., even if the victim is 18+ at the time the behavior occurs and even if the sexual activity would be considered consensual in a context lacking this power differential. This type of abuse is frequently euphemized as “an affair / infidelity / adultery” but the imbalance of power is the key deciding factor to the contrary. A relevant variant to the above examples is a boss engaging in any sexual behavior with an employee in a church or ministry setting.
Sexual abuse between children: Sexual abuse can occur between children of varying power differentials (most commonly age, but various factors such as imbalance of sexual education, previous exposure to abuse or pornography and family or situational roles and dynamics can come into play). If the perpetrator was under 18 at the time the abuse occurred and is not otherwise identifiable as an abuser in adulthood, we will generally try to minimize identifying information about that person. ACNAtoo does not seek to “out” child perpetrators, but many stories of child-on-child sexual abuse point to other issues within church or family systems. They are also a source of great shame and confusion for many child victims and can often set the stage for further victimization.
Sexual assault: This includes any sexual touching of a child by an adult and any unwanted sexual touching of an adult by another adult, whether or not sexual penetration is involved. This is the most commonly recognized form of sexual abuse and overlaps with various other categories on this list.
Abuser’s role: The abuse need not have been committed by a person in ACNA leadership to be counted in ACNAtoo. The perpetrator could be a fellow church employee at your same level or even another parishioner if the church enabled abuse or failed to respond properly to allegations. If the perpetrator is another parishioner, please include how the church was involved. This could be by cultural enabling, unsafe teaching (see the example under “sexual abuse within marriage,” above), warning signs missed by the church, leadership’s mishandling of allegations, failures of pastoral counseling (see also above), or an unsafe environment for disclosure (i.e. the community had previously dismissed other survivor stories in conversations you heard, etc).
Survivor’s relationship to the ACNA: You do not need to be an ACNA member, past or present. If the perpetrator or enablers held or hold a position of authority in the ACNA, your story is part of ACNAtoo.
Survivor Story Guidelines
Establishing the facts
As the owner of your story, you are responsible to ensure it is factual. As stated above, ACNAtoo maintains our commitment to believing survivors; however, we cannot vet the details ourselves, so we rely on you to double check anything you may be unsure of, or qualify it with appropriate phrases such as “to the best of my memory,” etc.
(For added survivor and advocate safety, we will publish all stories under the classification of “allegations.”)
2. Perpetrators and enablers
ACNAtoo allows for the naming of perpetrators and enablers and describing what they did, within these guidelines:
You can also name the perpetrator or enabler’s roles/positions in the church and include any and all details you feel comfortable with that are relevant to your experience of abuse.
Avoid assigning conscious intent or otherwise speculating on a person’s internal state or emotions. In other words, stick to their words and actions.
Good: “After I confronted him about the inappropriate comment, he stopped responding to my emails, despite having always responded promptly before.” (describes a change in behavior)
Too unsubstantiated: “He stopped responding to my emails because he was embarrassed by my confronting him.” (assigns unverifiable emotional state)
Good: “When I mentioned that, he became visibly agitated, speaking faster and louder, and I began to feel attacked.” (describes his actions and your emotional response)
Too unsubstantiated: “He verbally attacked me because what I said triggered a memory from his childhood.” (“verbal attack” is too vague, also speculates on why he acted this way)
3. Other survivors
It is often relevant to a survivor’s story that the abuser has other victims. However, we respect the privacy and autonomy of all survivors to determine how and when they wish to disclose their experience. Do not name other survivors in your own story without their permission.
Referencing other survivors
If it is relevant to note additional survivors, you can include their existence in a general sense but do not name them (even via a pseudonym) or provide any identifying information that would allow those outside the situation to identify who they are.
Example:
Good: “To my knowledge, my abuser assaulted 5 other minors within the church during his leadership tenure there.”
Too identifying: “Two brothers and three other girls (one of whom was my choir partner and all of whom were in my same year at youth group) were also assaulted by the same abuser.”
(The exception to this is if you have first obtained their explicit permission to do so. If you are unsure how to protect the identities of other survivors who have not given explicit permission to be identified, we can help you rework your story to obscure any identifying information.)
Speak only for yourself
If you refer to another survivor while telling your own story, do not speak for them. This includes describing their internal experience of the abuse, their process of addressing it, their healing journey, etc., without their explicit approval of the content.
Example:
Good: "I later came to know that other individuals also reported allegations of abuse to leadership regarding my abuser and one of those cases led to a report being filed with local police."
Speaking for them: “The other boy who was abused during the same time period as me is still suffering in silence and needs justice to take place. I hope he can find the courage to speak out.”
Naming other survivors with their consent
If the other survivors noted in your story do consent to you using their identifying information or describing their experience, we will need them to contact us with approval of the final draft before it is published, to verify this.
4. Minor children
For the safety of everyone involved, ACNAtoo will not name any children under 18, even if they are not a survivor.
It will be impossible to “shield” the children of perpetrators and enablers from the fallout of their parents’ misdeeds. However, we will not highlight them unnecessarily.
If a parent of a still-minor survivor wishes to tell how the church mishandled allegations of their child’s abuse or of how the perpetrator groomed the parents and community, the child’s name, details of their abuse, and the child’s personal experience need to be kept private.
If minor children are suspected victims (beyond just being accessible to a known abuser) do not include this in your story. Instead, call DCFS and file a report. (You do not need to be a mandated reporter or play any specific role in the child’s life to do this, and if you have reasonable cause to believe a child is in danger, you should report.)
5. Additional parties
In general, refrain from naming anyone in your story who isn’t themselves a perpetrator or enabler of the abuse.
There may be situations where someone intervened positively to try to help you and you want to give them credit. We still ask that you confirm with the individual in question to ensure they consent to having their name published in this context. If they do not, minimize identifying information as much as possible without compromising your story.
Do the same for any neutral parties relevant to the story.
Note: Because of how sexual predators operate in communities, some of those who enable them are also victims to varying degrees, meaning the categories are not always clear cut. Common examples include abusers' spouses and those whom the abuser has harassed or groomed but who do not acknowledge this behavior as abusive. These complications will be handled on a case-by-case basis, per the conclusion below.
6. Those in direct physical danger
In many cases, children or vulnerable adults may still be in direct danger from a perpetrator. While bringing broader scrutiny to a perpetrator can often work to counteract this danger, this is not always the case. If telling your story publicly could endanger or further endanger someone’s immediate safety in any way, you should refrain from doing so and instead seek help from authorities or the community (if possible), or call a hotline such as the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-4673. If minors are in danger, you can call the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453 for advice or directly contact your local child protective services office, who can determine if an investigation is warranted. If you are not a mandated reporter and do not wish to make that call, please reach out to us or a qualified professional and we/they will make that report on your and the minor’s behalf.
7. Use of photos
The inclusion of photographs can be a powerful aid in humanizing/supplementing a written account. Our policy at ACNAtoo is to blur or obscure the faces of all parties in a photo except for alleged perpetrators, other guilty parties (such as those who covered up abuse allegations brought to their attention), or anyone who provides explicit permission for their face to be shown.
8. Informed consent
To ensure safety for both survivors and the ACNAtoo advocacy team, we will provide an informed consent and hold harmless waiver to be signed before any story is published.
In conclusion
Because stories of abuse and its aftermath are endlessly complicated and intersectional, there will occasionally need to be judgment calls made on a case-by-case basis regarding the points outlined above. The trauma-informed professionals who partner with ACNAtoo will make the final decisions regarding what can or cannot be included (always noting that the survivor has the final word on whether a story is published after the ACNAtoo team has ensured that the story adheres fully to ACNAtoo guidelines).
ACNAtoo commits to keeping survivor information confidential within the team. Only the story you decide to publish, with the information you decide to include, will be shared outside the team.
There is one exception to this: Our team includes several trauma-informed therapists and clergy who are also mandated reporters. If you disclose information concerning a minor or elderly individual currently being harmed or in a situation of danger, we are legally required to report it within their state of residence. The requirements for mandated reporting are consistent throughout the USA, but for learning purposes you can consult the IL guidelines online here.